Comments on: Italy: Still the Sick Man of Europe

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 21:46:00 +0000

In addition to what I wrote in my previous comment, only today Monti’s Minister of Justice Severino – who is putting together anti-corruption measures in this very period – declared that corruption is ‘an important obstacle for the country’s competitiveness’, i.e. the country’s economy. So again, I’m not saying at all that the crisis is caused by corruption in Italy, but that corruption is seriously obstructing a way out of the crisis.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:33:00 +0000

That’s exactly it, Jeffrey: the article doesn’t talk about the CAUSES of the crisis in Europe, but points out a long standing problem in Italy, one which was addressed in the early 1990s, with the massive anti-corruption investigations Mani Pulite (Clean Hands), which however didn’t ‘clean up’ the country at all. The corruption has remained in tact and is costing the country millions of euros, so I don’t agree that corruption has nothing to do with the crisis: as long as there are politicans wasting public money which Monti then has to compensate for by cutting health care, education, raising taxes, etc, the country will not get out of the crisis. The timing of the article is related more to the culmination of a series of scandals which are symptomatic of Italy’s problems over the past decades and which are obstructing a solution for the crisis. Thus the austerity measures are killing ‘ordinary’ people, culture and economy: just this week the government anounced another tax increase, which will hit hard mostly on those individuals and families who have to get by with 800-1000 euros per month, not to mention the ‘precarious’ younger generations: yesterday I heard about a call center in Rome which was paying its employees €2 per hour…In the meantime, the proposal to bring down the ‘maxi salaries’ of
managers and company directors has been dismissed, and politicians are
consolidating their luxury pensions of several thousands of euros per
month (Nicole Minetti – aged 27 – appears to have manged to consolidate
her pension from age 60 onwards instead of 67 for ‘normal’ Italians). All this in spite of alarming figures about consumption going down: obviously with less money in one’s pocket and prices rising every six months, people are spending less and this is bad for economy. So corruption and political scandals are very much related to the duration of the crisis.

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:56:00 +0000

I agree with your account of the crisis in Europe. Austerity packages are the problem, not the solution. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter is that this post does describe a serious long standing problem in Italy, which must be addressed.

By: Jeffrey Goldfarb

Jeffrey Goldfarb — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:56:00 +0000

By: Felipe Pait

Felipe Pait — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:43:00 +0000

I find the timing of this article odd. The current crisis in Europe is not caused by people who do not take politics seriously. Much the contrary, it is caused by very serious people forcing a destructive austerity upon Italy, Spain, and the rest of Europe.

No one would argue that Italy cannot be run better, or should not. However the biggest economic crisis in the European Union has nothing to do with corruption or other flaws in the Italian political system.

By: Felipe Pait

Felipe Pait — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:43:00 +0000